Thaindian News

Bhopal, March 27 (IANS) A five-year-old tigress was released Sunday in the sprawling Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh after she made a 450-km road journey from the state’s Kanha forest as part of a reintroduction programme of the big cats.

She reached Panna around 10.30 p.m. Saturday after completing a 15-hour journey from Kanha.

“We have released the tigress at 6.30 (a.m.) today (Sunday) morning in the Mandla Range of Panna tiger reserve,” R. Sriniwas Murthy, field director of Panna tiger reserve, told IANS.

The tigress was kept in an open enclosure in Kanha since her mother died. Her translocation was originally planned in December last year but had to be postponed as she was injured in a fight with another tigress in Kanha.

Both tigresses had been selected for the translocation from Kanha as part of a government programme to reintroduce the big cats at Panna. The other tigress will be shifted later.

Normally translocated wild tigers are kept in an enclosure for two to three days to aclimatize them with the new place. This tigress was, however, released only after few hours.

S. Nalamuthu, cinematographer who made the documentary “Tiger Queen” and who joined the team to capture the process, told IANS: “The tigress took a long jump from the enclosure and soon disappeared into the dense forest.”

Spread across more than 540 sq km, the Panna National Park is the 22nd tiger reserve of India and fifth in Madhya Pradesh. The park was created in 1981 and declared a tiger reserve in 1994.

Another tigress was translocated to the park from Bandhavgarh tiger reserve in 2009. She mated and given birth to four cubs there in March 2010. Unfortunately, two cubs went missing and are feared dead. Panna now has four adult tigers, after the Kanha tigress was released there, and two cubs.

Nalamuthu, a seasoned cinematographer who has captured other translocation programmes of big cats, will record the activities of the translocated tigress for a year. “I have got exclusive rights for it and I am very much excited because this translocation is different from other ones,” he said.

The translocation of the tigress comes as India plans to release the latest tiger census report at a global tiger conference in Delhi March 28-30.

Some 200 delegates, including officials from 13 tiger range countries, will participate. The meet will be hosted by Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh. According to the 2008 census report, India had 1,411 tigers.